


Dear Dearest Darling

by adreadfulidea



Category: Mad Men
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 16:05:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2699045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreadfulidea/pseuds/adreadfulidea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Joan wrote to Lane Pryce she was sixteen years old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Dearest Darling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wildcard_47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/gifts).



> This is for Wildcard_47, who requested a pen pal AU.

 

 

The first time Joan wrote to Lane Pryce she was sixteen years old. That was the summer her mother had strong-armed her into being a camp counselor. She spent her days tromping through the woods in horrible shorts trying to keep a bunch of overindulged ten year olds from eating poison ivy. _Exactly_ how she hoped to spend her hours of freedom from school. No beaches. No relaxing. No _boys_.

It was a pen pal program that someone found in the back of a magazine. Joan thought the whole thing was a little childish, but all the other girls were doing it so she did too. She wrote a brief letter outlining the basic details of her life and what she hoped to be doing after high school (getting out of pokey, boring Spokane, for one thing). She included a picture of herself, a nice one taken down by the lake. In her own clothes, thank you, not that unflattering uniform.

“I wish I could get my hair to look like that,” Lisa said enviously as she snapped the photograph. Her hair was sandy blonde and could never hold a curl for more than twenty minutes. “Which did you pick out, boy or girl?”

They had to fill out a questionnaire to go along with their letter stating what kind of pen pal they wanted. Male or female, age range, that sort of thing.

“A boy,” said Joan, slyly. “Of course.”

 

 

The first letter was waiting for her when she got back home. It was as brief as hers had been - his name was Lane, he was a university student in London. He sent along a pin with his school’s logo on it, which she thought was a nice touch.

_London_. She lay in her bedroom and imagined that, that old sprawling city across the ocean. It probably wasn’t the most modern place, but Joan had a passing interest in history. It would be an interesting location to visit. And so close to France - she would _love_ to see Paris.

There was a water stain on the ceiling and she could hear the tap in the kitchen dripping. The super was always saying he was going to fix it, but he never did. But for a time Joan was far away from all that, somewhere elegant with lit up nights and fabulous parties.

And then her mother shouted for her to come help with the dishes, and she peeled herself off the bed with a sigh.

 

 

“What does he look like?” Nancy asked, her eyes lighting up with curiosity.

“I have no idea,” Joan said. She exhaled smoke and tapped the ash of her cigarette into the bathroom sink. “I know what I’m _imagining_. I’m thinking a young Laurence Olivier type.”

She and Lane wrote each other regularly, now. He had started out fairly impersonal - what classes he was taking, books he thought might interest her. But that had changed recently. His shyness was fading and he had started talking more about himself. He told her about his older brother, whom he clearly adored and was frustrated by in equal measure. He wrote about how hard he found relating to many of his wealthier classmates - apparently there was some serious money flying around that campus. His last letter had contained a paragraph long reverie on how beautiful London was in the fall, which Joan thought was adorable.

The boys Joan went out with were fun and all, but none of them ever talked about anything important with her. They acted like nothing mattered to them. If she so much as brought up a serious topic she couldn’t count to ten before their eyes glazed over. They wanted her bubbly and exciting. Anything else and - _poof_ \- their interest vanished. She supposed men didn’t like women who dragged them down, and that was just how it was. But Lane - he was different.

She had slipped a couple of poems into the most recent envelope she mailed him. It didn’t matter what he thought of them, she told herself to calm the butterflies in her stomach.

“Don’t get your hopes up too high,” Nancy giggled. “He’ll probably have ears the size of dinner plates.”

“We’ll see,” said Joan, and took a hairbrush out of her purse. She combed her hair into smooth, shining waves and applied a fresh coat of lipstick. Her sweater hugged her figure like a second skin and the powder blue color made her eyes sparkle - perfect. The new quarterback was going to take her to the movies this weekend. He just didn’t know it yet.

_I think it’s very unfair_ , she wrote to Lane that night, _that you have a picture of me and I don’t have one of you._

 

 

She stole away to her room when she found Lane’s letter on the kitchen table, jumbled in amongst circulars and bills. The bed jounced when she dropped down onto it and in her excitement the picture slipped from the torn edge of the envelope and fluttered to the floor.

Joan picked it up and saw Lane’s face for the first time.

Oh, she thought, and couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. It wasn’t a very good photograph, first of all. Grainy and slightly blurred, like either photographer or subject had moved at the last second. He was holding up a hand to block what must have been bright light, because he was squinting, too. And he wasn’t - he wasn’t very handsome, really. Large glasses, a plain oval face and hair combed with extreme neatness.

At least his ears were normal sized. She unfolded his letter. _Dear Joan_ , it read, _I have enclosed_ _a picture of myself as you requested. I apologize for the quality; I don’t have a great many to choose from. I thought about sending you one from my school days but feared you would never write to me again if I did. The uniform alone could make sure of that._

That made her laugh, and she felt bad for her uncharitable thoughts before. It didn’t matter what he looked like - he was sweet and funny and of course she would keep writing to him. It wasn’t as if they were ever going to meet, after all.

 

 

He sent her a corsage for her high school graduation. Not real flowers that would have crumbled in the mail, but some very pretty silk ones. The rose was a vivid, sunset orange hue and she wondered if it was a reference to her hair.

She wore it the whole evening, and kept it in a box in her closet afterwards. When she looked back at pictures of herself at graduation the spot of brightness on her wrist always made her smile.

 

 

They did that occasionally, gave each other small presents. He mailed her chocolates for her birthday, she sent along a watch chain she thought he might like. Once she gave him a pack of baseball cards as a joke but he genuinely loved them.

They wrote less after Joan left high school and Lane university; but they still kept each other updated. Certainly for major life events it was de rigueur to write to him. Her first real job, the momentous occasion of her disastrous first marriage and even more momentous occasion of her annulment. Her move to New York.

He was seeing a woman named Rebecca and wanted badly to propose, so of course he waffled about it constantly. Finally Joan told him quite sternly to get a move on; _if she rejects you_ , she wrote, _then’s she’s a fool_. And she meant every word.

 

 

Joan came home from a long and completely unproductive evening at the bar, let down her hair and stared at her face in the mirror. No amount of makeup could distract from how tired she felt. She just didn’t have the stamina for the scene tonight. The people she met seemed so dull, the weight of men’s eyes on her hostile instead of validating. And everywhere there had been young girls, fresh from college or secretarial school, trying out that low-cut neckline for the first time. Hoping to be bought drinks, flirted with; maybe wanting some quick and easy entertainment between the sheets. None of them were home now, searching the topography of their own skin for lines that weren’t there yet. Wondering what they would do when they couldn’t fight off time any longer.

She got into a comfortable bathrobe and made herself a cup of tea. _Dearest Lane_ , she wrote, sitting at her kitchen table. _Today I turned thirty years old, and if I said I was happy about it I’d be lying…_

 

 

She never told any of the men she was with about Lane. Not Paul, who would have become insecure and unbearably passive-aggressive. Not Roger, though he was confident enough to not care that she had a correspondence with some nebbish Englishman. But he would have laughed at it, and she couldn’t bear to have Lane made fun of, somehow.

Certainly not Greg, who would have reacted with his idiot’s jealousy.

It was something that was only for her, their letters and gifts and private in-jokes. In some strange way they had carried each other throughout their lives. She wouldn’t risk that for the world.

 

 

Joan rushed across the subway platform and made it just in time, darting through the closing doors of the car and trying to close her umbrella all at once. She pulled the kerchief she had tied over her hair off and tucked it into her pocket. There weren’t many seats available. The closest was next to a middle-aged man in a dark woolen overcoat, reading a newspaper with his hat pulled down low over his eyes. There was a small suitcase sitting on the floor between his feet.

“Excuse me,” she said, and slid herself into the empty space.

“Not at all,” he said, folding his newspaper and moving to the side to give her room. He was English, with a slightly hoarse voice. When she looked over she was struck by a powerful feeling of familiarity. She didn’t know why. He wasn’t a client, or anyone she had met through Sterling Cooper. He wasn’t an old date, either. Where on earth did she recognize him from?

“Excuse me,” she said again, and touched his arm lightly. “But have we met before?”

He looked up and his expression moved quickly from impassive to startled. “ _Joan_?” he said, incredulously.

“Oh my lord,” she said in astonishment. Just like that she knew exactly who he was, even though she had never once heard his voice. “Lane Pryce.” Somehow he was exactly what she would have expected, and yet nothing like.

And then she was embracing him, holding in her arms this stranger who wasn’t a stranger at all.

They went back to Lane’s hotel in midtown and sat by the fire with their drinks to thaw out. He was in New York for the week at least but would be moving there if his round of interviews panned out. “I think I need a bit of change,” he said ruefully, spinning his empty glass in his hand absentmindedly. It had been a year since his divorce, if she remembered correctly. Two since hers.

“Why didn’t you look me up?” she asked, baffled. “I’d have loved to hear from you.”

“Because I wasn’t sure if you would,” he said, punctuated by a self deprecating little shrug. “I wondered if I’d become a bit of a habit for you. You were so young when you started writing me.”

“No,” said Joan. “No, of course not, Lane. I - oh, my god.” She covered her face with her hand, embarrassed. “I sent you _poetry_ back in high school. I am so sorry.”

He laughed. “I thought that was quite sweet. I still have it, actually. I take that to mean you didn’t become a poetess after all?”

“No,” said Joan. “I didn’t. And I can’t believe you kept it.”

“It seemed like decent enough verse to me,” he mused. “Though I suppose I don’t know anything about it.”

He had been very encouraging, as she remembered it. He was about so many things. When she wrote to him about leaving Greg he had responded that she was behaving with ‘bravery and gumption’. She wrote twice as many letters as usual, that year.

The light from the fireplace cast a warm, healthy glow over both of them. She looked at him and realized that she _enjoyed_ looking at him, that the kind roughness of his face appealed to her very much. She didn’t know if it was him that had changed, or if it was her eyes. No, she hadn’t thought him so very attractive when she was a girl. Ah, well - she’d been a bit of a superficial ninny back then. There was nothing wrong with character showing in a man’s face.

Her heartbeat was speeding up. She was excited. She wanted him to _like_ her. It had been a long time since she felt that way about anyone.

“I hope you stay,” she said. “Because we need to get to know each other a whole lot better.”

Joan wasn’t such a fool that she would spit on second chances. Not anymore. She knew there weren’t many of them in this life. Judging by the look of surprised pleasure creeping across his face, transformative as light in a forest, so did Lane.

“Yes,” he said. “I would like that very much.”

 

 

 


End file.
